I feel those who argue that travellers have been doing it for thousands of years, and it is natural, are completely wrong.

The illegal pitches have brick built homes and large static caravans on the pitches. So much for a nomadic travellers, always on the move, life. The report says that the majority of the illegal pitches have been there for 10 years, so how are they different from normal people who buy normal houses?It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues

The point is that they legally own their own land, what they have done is built houses without planning permission, They have applied retrospectively for it and been refused. If they are genuine Gypsys or Romanys then there is a case for reviewing the decision, as they are recognised social cummunities. If they are mainly what are termed "New Age Travellers" then maybe not. I think there is a mix of all three here.

If the courts decision was overturned, then it opens the floodgates for every illegal travellers site in the country to apply for back permisssion and quoting this case. You could have new sites springing up all over the place and houses being built without any form of control, knowing that they will probably get away with it. What is the point of having planning regulations if they cant be enforced?

If someone has a caravan parked on land without permission, whether they own the land or not, then it is easy to enforce its removal, but I cant see that it is right to bulldoze someones brick built home they have lived in for ten years, even if it shouldn't be there. There has to be a compromise way out of this.

Of course every fanatic and troublemaker that had a hand in the student protests and recent country wide riots, has hot-footed it down there. It has gone beyond supporting the residents there, the situation is being deliberately turned into a confrontation with the police and the establishment. Its using the original issue as an excuse for anarchy, which is what these people do. They thrive on confrontation with any form of authority.

Redgrave maybe thought she was helping by lending her support,but she may have exacerbated the situation by publicising it.

I think it important to remember the situation here. The land they bought was originally, and still is, classed as green belt land. This means that it is restricted to agricultural or forestry use.

There is no planning permission for residential use, even living in a tent, that is why they are being evicted. They will still legally own the land but they can not live on it.

If they bought the land in good faith to live on, then perhaps they have a claim against misrepresentation by the original seller, but I would suspect the truth may be somewhat different. There are apparently a number of quite legal plots there, quite how I'm not sure, but it is pretty likely the Travellers bought the land, knowing what it was, and hoping in future to get legalised on the backs of those already there.

Judging by elsewhere, incompetent local councils take years to sort theselves out, then there are appeal procedures to follow, then of course the European Human Rights Court. They may well be safe for a decade, and by then some will have moved on to start again elsewhere. It's a life of sorts.

Is there some culpability here upon the original landowner? If it could be shown that they knew pretty much what was likely to happen to their land once they sold it, should they not bear some responsibilty for the current situation? Should not every land sale be vetted by Local Councils first, and if necessary blocked, before it goes through?

The problem is that these Travellers seem to have access to enough money to offer landowners a very good price for land they otherwise have no use for. In a recession, it must be tempting for landowners to make a quick buck, then turn a blind eye.

You have here 1000 people that choose, for whatever reason, to live in the way that they do, in what can really only be called private compounds. I think there is a strong case for official legal sites to me made available at "suitable" places elsewhere. A deal can be done with the local Council,

"We'll supply the land, you supply the on-site hardstandings local drainage, services, etc, and we'll connect you to the mains."

It also appears that there may have been some lurid reporting here, which is pretty typical of the current UK press, trying to retain readers in a recession.

Look at this picture. It shows the legal part of the site, and within the dotted lines, the illegal part of the site. The legal part has mainly brick built chalets, with 600 people. The illegal part is mainly mobile caravans with 400 people. It is the 400 people, in 80 families, on 52 plots in the illegal area that are being evicted.

So reports of 1000 people having their homes torn down are a bit wide of the mark.

May be, but they are a minority with a big difference though.
Do you have these type gypsy's in Canada Hev?

Hi Michael, I have only recently moved back to live in Canada so don't know what the situation is here.

Previously though I worked in South London for a government initiated project to work with the socially and educationally excluded, some of these being from the travelling community.

Presumably the eviction from Dale Farm will include children, were will they go?

Hi Hev, Where will the children go is a very valid point and a concern. But you will have guessed by reading many of the threads here lately that many of us feel that this should be their parents concern and responsibility first. These people should not have put their families & children is this position in the first place, It's annoying to many of us that people today have got the habit of showing this irresponsibility towards themselves and other on many other issues.
Then when things go wrong for them it's expected of the state to pick the pieces up and be shouldered with blame for the cause of it all. I feel that the social system in this country is doing far too much for people, so taking individuals need to support and care for themselves away. These travelers in question chose to break the law by not gaining planning permission to build on this land. The knew they were breaking the law and knew what the consequences of breaking the law could result in. They chose to be irresponsible in their approach to things so it's only right that they shoulder the responsibility of their actions here.
What happens to their children now is for them to sort out, it's for them to make the necessary arrangements to get their children to school. Let wait now and see just how responsible the parents of these children are. Lets see if these parents do what is only right for their children and make every effort to get their children into school again by the start of this next new term.

It's been reported that a lot of the legal residents at Dale Farm do indeed send their kids to local schools. I suspect that very few if any of the other travellers do so. They will simply grow up to carry on as their parents do, it's the only life they have ever known.

They are probably physically healthy enough given their open air lifestyle. But what could Social Services do? Take the lot into local Council care?

The only real answer is to place the people somewhere legal, where they have security of tenure, and health workers, sanitation inspectors, education officials have free access to advise and ensure that the kids are being brought up and educated properly.

I'm not surprised Hev. It was fairly obvious that the longer they left it, this was going to happen. It's too late to force them out now, the world spotlight is on this issue.

However they simply can't just grant retropective permission to stay, it would make a mockery of all the Planning lawsm and the Courts and Judiciary as well. Every illegal Traveller site in the country, and there are hundreds, woud be clamouring for the same favourable treatment.

Genuine Romany Gypsies have been recognised as a community since the 1600's, and have a strong heritage and tradition, popularly evidenced by the by their folk dress and horse drawn gaily painted caravans etc. What we appear to have here, are "New Age Travellers" or Pikeys, as they are called in the UK. They are simply society drop-outs. They are not recognised in the same way, despite claims to the contrary.

However, if they are chucked out, they will just set up camp somewhere else illegaly, and it will all start all over again. And yes of course, the needs of the elderly and children must be borne in mind.

The only answer as I see it, is to negotiate a replacement legal site for them, as an equitable settlement for both sides.

Genuine Romany Gypsies have been recognised as a community since the 1600's, and have a strong heritage and tradition, popularly evidenced by the by their folk dress and horse drawn gaily painted caravans etc. What we appear to have here, are "New Age Travellers" or Pikeys, as they are called in the UK. They are simply society drop-outs. They are not recognised in the same way, despite claims to the contrary.

However, if they are chucked out, they will just set up camp somewhere else illegaly, and it will all start all over again. And yes of course, the needs of the elderly and children must be borne in mind.

The only answer as I see it, is to negotiate a replacement legal site for them, as an equitable settlement for both sides.

That's correct Chris there just Pikeys and not the genuine Romany Gypsies.
And how the UN can support a group of people who have broken the law defies belief!! The UK government has no choice here other than to enact the law as it is laid down. If they fail to do so this will be seen as a sign of weakness and god knows what groups of people, under the banner of being minorities, will do to take unfair advantages. If the majority groups have to follow the law so too do the minorities. There can be no differentiation here what ever any groups circumstances are. Unfortunately the dunder heads in the UN have failed to realise this and so have jumped head first into a potential quagmire. If we wont the UN's advice then we will ask for it, until then they can shove-off and do something useful like defend those white farmers in Zimbabwe who have been cold bloodily murdered over the years, well, they are a minority group too.

Genuine Romany Gypsies have been recognised as a community since the 1600's, and have a strong heritage and tradition, popularly evidenced by the by their folk dress and horse drawn gaily painted caravans etc. What we appear to have here, are "New Age Travellers" or Pikeys, as they are called in the UK. They are simply society drop-outs. They are not recognised in the same way, despite claims to the contrary.

However, if they are chucked out, they will just set up camp somewhere else illegaly, and it will all start all over again. And yes of course, the needs of the elderly and children must be borne in mind.

The only answer as I see it, is to negotiate a replacement legal site for them, as an equitable settlement for both sides.

That's correct Chris there just Pikeys and not the genuine Romany Gypsies.
And how the UN can support a group of people who have broken the law defies belief!! The UK government has no choice here other than to enact the law as it is laid down. If they fail to do so this will be seen as a sign of weakness and god knows what groups of people, under the banner of being minorities, will do to take unfair advantages. If the majority groups have to follow the law so too do the minorities. There can be no differentiation here what ever any groups circumstances are. Unfortunately the dunder heads in the UN have failed to realise this and so have jumped head first into a potential quagmire. If we wont the UN's advice then we will ask for it, until then they can shove-off and do something useful like defend those white farmers in Zimbabwe who have been cold bloodily murdered over the years, well, they are a minority group too.

So we have a hierarchy of different travelling communities? First of all these people are not "New Age Travellers" they are an ethnic cultural minority in their own right and have been around for several centuries.

The site that they are being evicted from was originally a "brownfield" site which was then termed "greenbelt" when it was bought, it was originally a scrapyard. Read the history of the restrictions on "travellers" with reference to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 which repealed the Caravan Sites Act 1968 to provide sites for gypsy and traveller use.

Pikey is a pejorative term, offensive to the travelling community and seen as racist.